Up to now, a IC memory device, termed a memory card, that employs a NAND flash memory has been in use as a data storage device. This IC memory device may be mounted to or dismounted from the recording and/or reproducing apparatus. The memory card is able to store a large variety of digital data, such as still image data, moving picture data, speech data or music data. For this reason, the memory card is used as an external storage medium in a wide variety of host devices, such as a portable information terminal, a desk top computer, a notebook computer, a mobile phone, an audio device, or a household electrical device.
The host device that employs the memory card as an external storage medium, is sometimes provided with an internal storage medium, such as a hard disc. The hard disc is usually accessed with a logical format from the host device, using a file system, called the MS-DOS™, as a vehicle. It is desirable that the file system is compatible with the memory card.
In the file system, file management data, such as the MBR (master boot record), PBR (partition boot record), FAT (file allocation table), and the root entry record, are recorded in a user area of a storage medium, by way of initialization. By recording the file management data, by way of initialization, the storage medium may be accessed by an operating system on the side of the host device. Consequently, the memory card is also initialized by the host device writing the aforementioned file management data in its flash memory.
Meanwhile, there are occasions where the capacity of a flash memory of a memory card differs from that of another memory card of the same standard as the first-stated memory card. If the memory cards of different capacities are to be initialized as external mediums, a host device, operating as a data recording and/or reproducing apparatus, has to be provided with initialization parameters or with initialization controlling processing programs, representing the contents of the MBR and so forth associated with the respective different capacities.
That is, the host device cannot cope with a memory card of a new capacity, even if the host device is provided with initialization parameters.